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Nvidia founder Jensen Huang is considering a comeback just days after he resigned from the $4 trillion company — and he’s getting a boost from big backers in big tech.
Huang’s pals have been putting together a “war room” of Silicon Valley executives to lobby for his return, with the allies even looking to the White House to get support, the Financial Times reported.
“Everyone that matters in tech outside the frontier labs loves Jensen,” one ally told the outlet.
The talks come after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Epic Games chief Tim Sweeny joined the “Bring Jensen Back” campaign demanding the Nvidia founder’s return.
While Silicon Valley is rallying around Jensen, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the board needs to look outside the company for leadership — saying that the chip maker needs a “dramatic shakeup.”
He also said that the Nvidia has a lot of questions to answer about whether the company circumvented the US ban on selling its most advanced chips to China.
Huang, 63, first came under fire after reports revealed that he had an affair with Alice Huang — no relation — a woman flagged by the US government as a suspected Chinese spy.
It was later revealed that Huang had two other affairs with employees while serving as the head of one of the world’s richest and most important companies in the world.
News of the affairs have caused Nvidia’s stock to plummet more than 23%, a major blow for the company that serves as the backbone of America’s booming AI industry.
Nvidia’s board of directors has since launched an independent probe into Huang’s actions, with the $4 trillion firm also owing the Trump administration answers within 10 days about whether it was profiting off of banned chip sales.
“I want to keep coming back to what was the culture at Nvidia, and were they pressing these seemingly illicit sales to goose their revenues and their earnings?” Bessent told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“And I think we need answers in the next 10 days from the board and from the outside counsel.”
Bessent also blamed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s team, whose jurisdiction includes export controls.
He noted that the Treasury, the State Department, the Defense Department and the US Trade Representative had backed blacklisting Megaspeed “for months.”
Alice was an executive for the Singapore-based Megaspeed, which has been accused of smuggling the high-end Nvidia chips to China despite being blacklisted by the US.
Huang is scheduled to meet in a closed-door interview with three House committees on Dec. 1, and the Senate Banking Committee has asked him to testify the same week over what he knew.
Following Huang’s resignation last week, Nvidia’s board of executives named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as the company’s interim CEO.
Kress was revealed to be the executive who Huang tore down during a heated meeting over the summer during a meeting about the increasingly risky loans the company was making to small datacenter companies, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It left Kress as a “deer in the headlights,” one source told the Journal, as Huang stressed the need for the company to land major deals amid funding promises that were rolling in like an “avalanche.”
Replacing Huang would always be a difficult endeavor due to the former boss’ rejection of traditional succession planning, leaving Nvidia with no clear successor.
Huang would even brag about how essential he is to the company, having 60 direct reports rather than relying on intermediaries, Yale’s “CEO Whisperer” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld told CNN about Nvidia’s style.
That’s why Huang loyalists have called on the company to allow him to return given his leadership that allowed Nvidia to thrive and become the second biggest company in the world only behind Apple.
But Huang loyalists have called on the company to allow him to return given his leadership that allowed Nvidia to thrive and become the second biggest company in the world only behind Apple.
Here’s the latest on the Nvidia CEO’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy:
- Jensen Huang eyeing comeback as Nvidia CEO forming ‘war room’ with allies in wake of Chinese spy, employee affairs: report
- Bessent urges Nvidia to look outside the company for new CEO after Huang’s resignation
- ‘SNL’ roasts ex-Nvidia boss Jensen Huang over Chinese ‘spy’ sex scandal
- Howard Lutnick in the hot seat as lawmakers demand answers on Nvidia sales to China
Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner and Atreides Management boss Gavin Baker — both of whom own large shares in Nvidia, sent out an open leader on Friday to the board urging them to leave “all options on the table, including the potential return of Jensen Huang.”
President Trump has defended Huang during the scandal, but has not said if the CEO should return. Instead, the president suggested former Apple CEO Tim Cook could take the job.
Nvidia has not said if it is considering hiring Huang back, with reports emerging that the company is approaching other big CEOs to serve as his successor.
Bessent appeared to be all in favor of Nvidia courting outsiders to help lead the company as the administration continues its investigation against Huang.
“This makes me think that as the board conducts a search for a new leader that they need to go outside the company,” Bessent said. “They needed a dramatic shakeup.”
Nvidia will report quarterly earnings come Tuesday, its first report without Huang at the helm.
